ARMA Support And Patching Plans

[frederf 0]

Overall I am satisfied with ArmA to the point that I will keep supporting the company and buying its products so long as they keep evolving steadily.

The most unfortunate part about OFP/ArmA to me is the potential that the game had that was not reached this time around and will not be patched/added because these changes are beyond the scope of the traditional bug-fixing patch.

I would like to pontificate if could in categorical upgrades to ArmA. Namely in the three separate realms of wanted upgrades to ArmA: Major changes to the game core that won't happen, moderate changes to existing gameplay that should happen but probably won't, and bug fixes/ obvious errors that really need to happen.

Major changes:

*Movement animation system The game still feels its flightsim engine roots to this day. Movement is rigid, unblended, jerky, and un-human. I generally don't mind it because this encourages a more thoughtful and tactful manner of play but does hurt immersion, comfort, and gameplay sometimes.

*Stuff to Do The part about playing an infantry soldier that makes life interesting is all the various stuff one can do. ArmA seriously limits one's ability to do in real life and becomes more of a run and shoot only pony show. Real soldiers can adjust their weapon sights, reconfigure weapons, apply vegetation to themselves, get visibly dirty, clamber and climb over walls, refill mags, combine ammo, fix jams, eat, sleep, camouflage places and people, change clothes/webgear, errect tents, buildings, antennas, use and transport crew served weapons, maintain electronics (batteries), fasten seatbelts, use goggles, move large boxes in hand, dig holes, and more. The more such interactions are added to ArmA the more immersed and pleased people will be with the game.

*Inventory The inventory system for vehicles, buildings, and people is rather out of date. Statistics such as weight and bulk need to be added to all inventory items. Soldiers carry rucksacks with much more equipment than in game, aircraft can be loaded custom when they are on the ground, trucks carry crates of supplies which must be man-loaded on and off. Crew serve weapons break into many pieces and are carried by many men. Imagine grabbing hand grenades off of a shelf at the armory before heading out, rummaging through a rucksack for more loose ammo, helping a buddy carry a crate of supplies off a truck or cranking up a GBU-12 off the handtruck under the airplane wing.

*persistence I know this is a big Game2 thing but it falls nicely into this category. The idea of running a convincing "online campaign" with resupply and a meta-campaign running is too cool to imagine. ArmA breaks down beyond the 3 hour mark without serious scripting.

*Communication Layers This is a huge area for improvement. ArmA is so close to having a strong tie between the in-game environment. Allowing radio channels, line-of-sight/range calculations for radio ability, local chatting, long range radio based upon equipment carried, etc could really transform the game world to a very richly layered one. The in game group/side/global channels are too rigid to be fully useful. Independent radio channel settings are much more flexible. Mission-variables that limit chat to proximity only if you don't have a long range radio for instance.

Moderate changes:

Weapons AT4s should be disposable, M203s should aim like real life, 40mm grenades should have an arming range, ACOGs and AIMPOINTs should be swappable in the field, etc. There a lot of glossed over points about weapons that don't mean much individually but really bring the game up as a whole when done across the board.

*Thermal Imaging The thermal side of war is a growingly big deal. Being able to specify a whole 'nother heat layer to the visuals would open a lot of doors.

*"Radar" The radar targetting system in ArmA is rather unfortunate because marginal vehicles show up too obviously in certain situations.

*AI Cover and Fire AI cover and fire should be improved somewhat. I don't expect miracles but it's such a huge part of the game that use-of-cover and intelligent laying of fire needs to be addressed at least in part because of the significant upgrade to the game it would present.

Bug Fixes / Necessary:

*VoN VoN needs to work more reliably. It's often fine but requires tech savvy people to massage it into working and often it simply doesn't or stops working randomly. This feature is a huge plus to the game and is so close to working. Oh and for God's sake why is Talk-Toggle the default bind for it? PushToTalk is the obvious choice and it's unbound by default. Better admin/mission control over VoN too. We can't run it on our public server because it can destroy a server without being able to track down who's doing it.

*Cheating and Multiplayer Control: Anticheats and a good admin and voting interface is sorely needed. People just simply do not know/learn the console commands for voting. Ease of use needs to be really high as MP player automatically drops everyone 30 IQ points while playing as a rule.

*HDR HDR can be such a pain in the butt. It's really obvious that the HDR level is sampled at an arbitrary fixed point and not averaged in any way. There are a lot of instances of the NVGoggles going crazy dark or bright because of a tiny bright or dark source. I don't know exactly how to fix this but it should be done somehow to make-sane this effect.

[Col. Faulkner 0]

For whatever my opinion is worth, I wholeheartedly agree

with all of the points "frederf" has just raised.

[4 IN 1 0]

you missed the ai bridge crossing part Frederf

other then that, its about all the things needed to be fix

edit: oh yeah may i add a bit more

something about squad control, since OFP there is a big problem on commanding the squad to it max. capability even with the colour team system, the problem enlarged in ARMA since now that you could command a company size of man, the old OFP style command system which used to be a 12 man team are now beyond the point of controlable and user friendly, and the formation problem are still there

i.e :even given a colour team, the member within the team are still in the position of the "big" squad instead of falling in into the new assigned teamleader to form a fire team

after assigned colour team, the team member will still on the full squad list instead of sorting under the to the fire team leader and you still have to give the order one by one to go here and there and engange this and that instead of just giving the order to their leader(or select the hold team just by hitting the team leader number) and let the AI solve the problem themself?

wouldnt it be easier to command a team by sorting them down into one instead of 12?

(inorder to make it more clear, here is some pic i made to show whats it looks like now and then)

before:

AFTER!

i wish its "clear" enought

[froggyluv 2136]

you missed the ai bridge crossing part Frederf

other then that, its about all the things needed to be fix

+1

...and mountains. I can't tell you how many times I've had a chopper full of troops get shot down in high terrain with no way to get my boys to follow me down.

[suma 8]

As the discussion does not seem to discuss the blog post at all, rather it is becoming a wish-fest, I am closing it.